Western Flies Archive

My buddy Steve Hamner found these flies in his roboresourcess.
Bing Lempke was a locally well-known tier back the 1970s -- 1980s.
Bing had a way of tying extended-body duns that people liked.
He fished a glass rod with Perrine automatic fly reel on the Henry's Fork
in Idaho.

I think Bing died in 1990. I met Bing once--at a TU fly tying seminar I organized
back in the early 1980s. I invited a dozen or more local tiers to come. But George Grant
and Bing were the only two who actually showed up. Bing was a working man and so
was I in those days. We became instant friends. At one point a cocky teenager
piped up (while Bing was busy tying an extended body Green Drake) and said something
like: "you don't really need to spend that much time tying a fly, just to catch a fish."

I didn't practice any spur-of-the-moment dentistry, like I wanted, but I was a hot-headed construction worker
in those days. And I lit into him pretty hard. I glowered at the teenager with narrow eyes and tight lips and said something like "you're looking at a work
of art kid, and you're too ^%$#ing dumb to know what you're seeing." The teenager made a fast nervous exit and we never saw him again.

I ran into Bing a few more times in years after that, usually at FFF conclaves where Bing was tying
and I was showing boats. Bing always grinned and re-told the story of the cocky teenager
who ran off with his tail between his legs. Alas I never did find the time to go wet a line with him.